This webpage summarises recent trends in global, regional and sectoral greenhouse gas emissions. This analysis has been developed for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 6th Assessment (AR6), Working Group (WG) III Report. Here you can find the emissions trend figures depicted across the report, but especially in Chapter 2 (Emissions Trends and Drivers), the summary documents (Summary for Policymakers and Technical Summary), and sector chapters.
See the Info tab for more information on our sources and analysis.
Total anthropogenic GHG emissions (GtCO2-eq yr-12 ) 1990-2019
CO2 from fossil fuel combustion and industrial processes (FFI); CO2 from Land use, land use change and forestry (CO2 LULUCF); methane (CH4); nitrous oxide (N2O); fluorinated gases (F-gases). F-gas emissions do not include Montreal gases (CFCs, HCFCs) which reached a peak in the 1990s but have since declined. Panel a: Aggregate GHG emission trends by groups of gases reported in GtCO2-eq converted based on global warming potentials with a 100-year time horizon (GWP-100) from the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report Working Group 1 (REF Chapter 7). Panel b: Waterfall diagrams juxtaposing GHG emissions for the most recent year 2019 in CO2 equivalent units using GWP-100 values from the IPCC’s Sixth, Fifth and Second Assessment Reports, respectively. Error bars show the associated uncertainties at a 90% confidence interval. Panel c: Individual trends in CO2-FFI, CO2-FOLU, CH4 and N2O emissions in (original) mass units 10 (Gt yr-1) for the period 1990–2019, normalised relative to 1 in 1990. Note the different scale for F-gas emissions compared to other gases, highlighting its very rapid growth from a low base.
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Change in regional GHG emissions and rates of change compatible with warming targets
Panel a: Regional GHG emission trends (in GtCO2-eq yr-1 (GWP100 AR6)) for the time period 1990–2019. GHG emissions from international aviation (AIR) and shipping (SEA) are not assigned to individual countries and shown separately. Panel b: Historical GHG emissions change by country (2010–2019), compared to rates of reduction compatible with 1.5°C and 2°C warming targets, assessed via reduction rates in AR6 IAM scenarios over the period 2020-2040. Individual circles depict countries (scaled by total emissions in 2019) or scenarios, horizontal lines depict the average change by region or scenario category. Panel b excludes CO2 LULUCF due to a lack of consistent national data.
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Global greenhouse gas emissions and their sources
The stacked bar on the left indicates total global greenhouse gas emissions in 2018, split by sectors based on direct (scope 1) emissions accounting. The arrows shown next to the electricity and heat sector depict the reallocation of these emissions to final sectors as indirect (scope 2) emissions. This increases the contribution to global emissions from the industry and buildings sector (central stacked bar). The stacked bar on the far right indicates the shares of subsectors in global emissions when indirect emissions are included.
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Global greenhouse gas emissions can be attributed to five sectors: energy systems; industry; agriculture, forestry and other land use (AFOLU); buildings; and transport. Here we show the trends in each of these sectors.
In the industry and buildings sectors (and to a lesser extent transport), electricity and heat supply are an important component of emissions, but would normally be counted in the energy systems sector where the emissions are directly released. We therefore show the indirect CO2 emissions from electricity and heat as an additional item in each of these final sectors, highlighting the important role of energy demand.
Most of these figures and analysis have been published in the following article, which also includes a review of the literature on trends, sector by sector:
Consolidated data files are available for the figures here:
Global and regional GHG emissions trends for all sectors
Panel a shows total global anthropogenic GHG emissions divided into major sectors. Panel b shows regional emission trends in the years 1990, 2000, 2010, 2018. This figure shows the direct (scope 1) allocation of emissions to sectors.
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Total global emissions by highest emitting subsectors
Only 15 subsectors out of 27 are shown. Indirect emissions from electricity and heat production are reallocated to subsectors as indicated. Growth rates in the left-hand panel are average annual rates across 2010-2018.
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Global and regional GHG emissions trends for the energy sector
Panel a shows total global energy systems GHG emissions divided into major subsectors. Panel b shows regional emission trends in the years 1990, 2000, 2010, 2018. This figure shows the direct (scope 1) allocation of emissions to sectors. Note that emissions from the electricity and heat subsector are allocated as indirect (scope 2) emissions to the buildings, industry and transport sectors in the following sections (thus double counting between these respective sector figures).
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Kaya decomposition of CO2 emissions drivers for the energy systems sector
The indicated growth rates are averaged across the years 2010-2018. Note that the energy term by itself is not part of the decomposition, but is depicted here for comparison with the Kaya factors. This figure is for fossil fuel CO2 emissions only, in order to ensure compatibility with underlying energy data.
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Global and regional GHG emissions trends for the industry sector
Panel a shows total global industry GHG emissions divided into major subsectors. Panel b shows regional emission trends in the years 1990, 2000, 2010, 2018. Indirect emissions from the electricity and heat subsector are shown here in grey.
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Kaya decomposition of CO2 emissions drivers for the industry sector (direct emissions only)
The indicated growth rates are averaged across the years 2010-2018. Note that the energy term by itself is not part of the decomposition, but is depicted here for comparison with the Kaya factors. This figure is for fossil fuel CO2 emissions only (indirect CO2 emissions and process-related and waste emissions are excluded) in order to ensure compatibility with underlying energy data.
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Global and regional GHG emissions trends for the buildings sector
Panel a shows total global industry GHG emissions divided into major subsectors. Panel b shows regional emission trends in the years 1990, 2000, 2010, 2018. Indirect emissions from the electricity and heat subsector are shown here in grey.
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Kaya decomposition of CO2 emissions drivers for the buildings sector (direct emissions only)
The indicated growth rates are averaged across the years 2010-2018. Note that the energy term by itself is not part of the decomposition, but is depicted here for comparison with the Kaya factors. This figure is for fossil fuel CO2 emissions only (indirect CO2 emissions are excluded) in order to ensure compatibility with underlying energy data.
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Global and regional GHG emissions trends for the transport sector
Panel b shows emissions at the years 1990, 2000, 2010, 2018. Indirect emissions from electricity and heat consumed in transport are shown here, but are not added to the transport sector totals in figure x3.1 (total emissions for all sectors). International aviation and shipping is included in panel a, but excluded from panel b.
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Kaya decomposition of CO2 emissions drivers for the transport sector
The indicated growth rates are averaged across the years 2010-2018. Note that the energy term by itself is not part of the decomposition, but is depicted here for comparison with the Kaya factors. This figure is for fossil fuel CO2 emissions only (indirect CO2 emissions are excluded) in order to ensure compatibility with underlying energy data.
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Global and regional GHG emissions trends for the AFOLU sector
Panel b shows emissions at the years 1990, 2000, 2010, 2018.
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Kaya decomposition of GHG emissions drivers for the AFOLU sector
Reproduced from Hong et al (Hong et al 2021).The indicated growth rates are averaged across the years 2010-2017. In contrast to other kaya figures, here we show total GHG emissions for the AFOLU sector.
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Some countries have sustained greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions for at least 10 years. This is true for multiple metrics, including territorial GHG emissions, territorial CO2 emissions, consumption-based CO2 emissions, and territorial GHG emissions including LULUCF CO2.
The average annual rates of change differ by country (and metric). As does the length of transition - some countries already started reducing in the 1970s (such as the UK, Sweden), while others only in the past 10 years.
As shown in the individual plots by country, most reductions were made in the electricity and heat sub-sector.
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We use the EDGAR v6.0 database of greenhouse gas emissions, which covers all major anthropogenic emissions sources and has a time span of 1970 to 2019 (Crippa et al 2019). EDGAR includes CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion derived from International Energy Agency data (IEA), supplemented with CH4 and N2O emissions from forest and peat fires taken from the Global Fire Emissions Database (GFED v4.1s; Van Der Werf et al 2017).
EDGAR does not include land-use, land-use change and forestry CO2 emissions and removals (LULUCF CO2 emissions). We therefore source these separately, using the average of three global bookkeeping models (Hansis et al 2015, Houghton and Nassikas 2017, Gasser et al 2020) in a convention established by the Global Carbon Project (Friedlingstein et al 2019). These include CO2 emissions from peat burning and draining from FAO and GFED.
We group greenhouse gas emissions sources into five sectors covering aspects of energy supply, including fossil fuel extraction, processing, transport and generation (energy systems sector), energy demand in final sectors (transport, buildings, and industry sectors), non-energy related process emissions (e.g. cement and Fgases within industry), and agriculture and LULUCF emissions (AFOLU). 27 further sub-sectors capture more detailed emissions trends.
Countries are grouped into regions following the IPCC AR6 WGIII classification based on geography and development status.
We use global warming potentials with a time horizon of 100 years (GWP100) to compare and aggregate different greenhouse gases. We use the latest GWP100 values with climate feedbacks from IPCC AR6 Working Group I, which are confidential until the release of the report in August 2021.
The data is published in an open access preprint, with the full detail on our sources and methods available:
[Note: a separate file with AR6 GWP100 values is available for IPCC authors on DM]